Solace
by Funnykido
Summary: It had never been her choice. Not at the beginning. But if we don’t have choices at the beginning, can we truly have any choices later? - DG One shot.


Solace

It had never been her choice. Not at the beginning. But if we don't have choices at the beginning, can we truly have any choices later? Ginny disregarded the answer. Besides, it didn't matter. True, she could have turned and walked away, but his eyes had held her there, pulling her towards him, rendering her motionless. Sure, she could have pulled away when he had kissed her, refused to see him again, but she knew that if she'd been given a choice, she would have made the same one anyway.

"You aren't really the type of person for a committed relationship," she'd said, that one night when her world flipped upside down with one simple touch of his lips. The night she dove into a deep, dark pit, that she wasn't entirely sure had a bottom. That night in the library, where she finally opened up, told him what she was thinking, though he knew all along.

"Let me be. Please." It had come out as a plea, but they both knew it wasn't. They both knew her answer before he even uttered the words. She didn't have a choice. They both know she wanted it, it was only a question of whether she was willing to risk it. He decided for her in the end. With the demand he had made, in that one kiss. It hadn't been a deep, or particularly good kiss. Just the seal of a deal that Ginny didn't remember starting. Just the bonding of two hearts, both lonely, both in need of love.

What had started from there had been the strangest relationship either had ever known, if you could call it even that. They met in secret, fearful of the reactions of the other students. When they met, often for brief periods, few and far apart, they were finally able to surrender their guards. Let themselves be completely free.

Neither knew exactly what they'd found. Only that they didn't want to let it go. They knew they had found solace in each other, a kindred spirit, a steady rock in the midst of a changing world. They would often just sit and talk, content to be in each other's arms, without pushing each other for more. They talked of dreams. What they wanted to do when they grew up. Draco, intent on bringing the Malfoy name back to its once-familiar glory. Ginny, wanting to help people, to step out of her family's shadow, and become her own person.

Looking back, it was probably this, among other things that brought them together. Wanting to be seen as their own person. Draco, desperate to not be seen as just a Slytherin Death-eater wannabe, had sought her out. He had sensed in her the same need, the same fire, the same desperation, and known instantly that he needed to be with her. No matter what, he would be with her. He had to be.

What followed after this epiphany had been the most bizarre wooing that anybody could remember, if they'd known of course. Their first encounter, he dragged her behind the large, rusty statue of Tom the Tenacious on the fourth floor. She tried to scream, so he put his hand over her mouth, which she promptly bit. He remembered uttering a few oaths, all the while holding her in his tight grip, not surrendering.

She turned to him with fearful eyes, but a glint of determination had sparked in them. He smiled inwardly when he saw this, his suspicion's confirmed. She was like him. A kindred spirit. They were linked, though she didn't know it yet.

"What do you want?" She demanded, fists ready at her side, ready for battle. She was prepared for anything. Anything except,

"You."

She was startled, to say the least. Stumbling back, her eyes widened, suspicion now reigning in them.

"I'm just like you. Your just like me. We're alike. We need each other," he explained, simply.

"I don't know what you're talking about. I don't need anybody," she insisted, intent on being strong.

He took her hand, small but still capable, in his own hand, smooth despite the long hours of Quidditch.

"Don't you," he asked softly into her ear, then pulled back and stared into her eyes.

She uttered, "No." Then walked away without looking back.

From there he did what he knew best. Bombarded her with a barrage of flowers, necklaces, and sappy little poems he picked up from the library. He suffered particularly looking up all the poems in the library, but it was all worth it.

She came up to him one day, while he was walking silently alone on the fourth floor, patrolling. Pinning him against the wall with her wand, she ordered in a fierce growl, "What is with all this stuff you keep giving me? I don't want it!"

"I want to give it to you."

"Why," she growled. "Why do you keep following me, sending me all this stuff? You've never noticed me before, why now?"

"The fire in your eyes. It's the same as mine. I need you," he said desperately.

Seeing the disgusted look in her eyes he amended quickly, "No not like that," with a small, almost bitter laugh. "I need you in my life. You need me."

"I don't need anybody. I'm fine on my own," she repeated.

"Well forgive me for not believing you, then."

She grew angry again at the simple way he was able to see past her barricade and see inside her, a feat nobody had ever come close to, but which he had achieved with such ease.

"You have no right to not believe me! You don't even know me!"

"I know much more about you than you think. I told you, we're the same. Shall I prove it to you?" Denying her the chance to respond he plowed on. "For instance, right now, you're fearful, but at the same time interested." He threw her a smug smile, observing that he was right. "And if you don't need anybody," he continued, "Why do I see you staring off into space with that faraway look in your eyes? You're lonely. Just like me."

She stared at him then, her eyes alight with realization.

"I don't even know you."

"Do you know yourself?"

She was puzzled, but she tentatively nodded her head.

"Then you know me," he said, smirking. She realized later, that smirk had been her undoing. It was, different, from the other ones she'd received or been witness to. Other times, she had seen hateful smirks, cruel smirks, ironic, gloatful, and annoying smirks. Never before had she seen this, and she doubted few other people had either.

It had held a hint of hopefulness, a dash of pleading. The closest thing she had ever come to seeing him beg, she realized. He was still his old cocky self that she had grown so accustomed to seeing, but it was more in jest now than anything else. She saw for the first time that night, the softer side, that rarely had the opportunity to come out, and she felt strangely proud that she should be the one to see it.

In that one smirk, he'd showed her a side of himself she never would have guessed. A side of himself that fit hers' perfectly. The realization hit her like a cold blast of water, washing over her, and leaving her different, changing her perspective, in just those few seconds.

She turned to him, suddenly looking at him in a new light.

"I-" she started, then stopped, too confused to go on. Too many emotions rushing through her head, making it difficult to concentrate on just one.

She shook her head, sighing, and simply walked away.

He called after questioningly, she shook her head again, and he hadn't pursued her further. She was grateful.

She made it through the next week in a trance. She never saw him in the halls, too busy looking down at the floor was she, but she felt him each and every time he passed her in the halls. She felt him staring at her, though not noticeable to anyone else. Had felt the hairs on the back of her neck raise.

The whole of the week could be summarized by her Double-Transfiguration class on Thursday. Normally her favorite subject by far, she had been unable to concentrate all period.

Her thoughts had been occupied, much as they'd been the rest of the week, on Him. The shock of her realization had worn off, leaving in it's wake indecisiveness. She had been contemplating, going back and forth, all week. To accept him, or to leave and not look back. She could still turn around, forget it ever happened.

"Ms. Weasley," McGonagall questioned, coming up to her desk.

Snapping her head up she replied, "Oh, sorry professor, I wasn't paying attention."

"Obviously," she replied dryly. "Well I suggest that you get a move on. You are in this class because of the Outstanding you received on your Owl, and it takes a bit more commitment and work than the normal level class. I suggest you get to work."

Blushing, she'd pretended to turn back to her work, absentmindedly completing the day's assignment, all the while going back to the previous subject.

She made her decision Friday, during History of Magic. The class presented a lot of time to think, and being fed up with her indecisiveness, she'd made her choice. Not a choice either way, just a choice to talk to him, try to figure this out.

Ironically, it was her that sought him out. She stole a peek at the patrolling schedules in the Head Common Room, and silently thanked Hermione for her careful planning and neat penmanship.

That night, she took more time with her appearance, telling herself that she just didn't want to look like she had just woken up. She bounded down the stairs, and walked out of the common room unobserved. Walking quickly through the halls, she hummed to herself in an attempt to keep her mind off of the butterflies in her stomach.

So intent on keeping her mind off of the butterflies was she, that she didn't notice his stealth footsteps behind her until he put a light hand on her shoulder, and uttered softly into her ear, "Boo."

Spinning around quickly, she tried to hold back a smile, and failed. Raising her eyes to his face, his eyes had drawn and ensnared her. She quickly got lost in them, forgetting what she'd come here to say.

"Yes," he prompted finally, after she'd been there a minute and offered no response as to her presence.

"Oh, I umm. ." she trailed off, uncertain as to how to go on.

She could see the question in his eyes, amidst the faint glint of hope.

"I want, I mean, I- I want to give this, whatever _this_ is a chance, but I don't know how, I don't want to get hurt," she said hurriedly, her words tumbling over each other.

"Why would you think I would hurt you," he asked, his eyes sparkling brightly in the dim light.

"Well, your not exactly the type for a committed relationship. I mean, what if I. . . you know. ." her face reddened and she stopped, but he seemed to know what she was going to say, and he finished for her. "What if you fell in love with me?"

She nodded her head, staring at her shoes.

"Ginny," he's murmured, cupping her chin in his hand and raising her eyes up to meet his.

"I'm way ahead of you already."

"What," she said, the confusion evident in her voice.

"I'm way ahead of you, because you see, it seems I've already fallen in love with _you._ And I like to think that I don't hurt the people I love."

Gasping she stepped back, wrenched her chin out of his hand, and backed up to the wall. For every step she took back, he took one forward, until she hit the wall and he continued forward until he was inches from her, his breath caressing her face with each exhale, and his eyes boring into hers.

"Y- you _love_ me," she asked incredulously.

"Obviously. I'm not in the habit of saying things I don't mean."

She blushed, all the while cursing her Weasley genes, and fixed her eyes on a spot just over his shoulder.

"Ginny, I know I've never been in a relationship before, and I'm not that kind of person. But give me a chance, let me be."

Not waiting for a response he'd lowered his lips to hers and kissed her. She came to him with the intention of talking, working this out, but his kiss threw her into a labyrinth of feelings she'd never experienced. The almost gravitational pull towards him, it would be so easy to just stay there and kiss him. But she remembered all too soon the reality. Your family loathes his family, his father tried to _kill _you. And above all others, the feeling of rightness. A pure feeling, that this, among all other things in the world, was right, and good, and safe.

The rules were set, the game was on. Kiss him back, and she'd be starting on a journey that had no predetermined destination, no absolute end, just feelings she'd never experienced before, and the gamble of her heart. Pull away, and she'd be leaving, never knowing what could have been, what could have sparked that night.

She kissed him back.

A/N: Now this is, for all intents and purposes, a one-shot. Just to clear things up. BUT, if I get a lot of response (Would it be too much to hope for forty or fifty reviews??), I might add a small one-shot onto it, kind of like an epilogue. IF I get a lot of response. hint hint

I just want to thank first, Kerichi, for her awesome Beta'ish comments, and her very particular view on stories that I love oh so much, lol! And also Remember Cedric Diggory for her unfailing support (though you knew that already didn't you, lol).

Thanks for reading, and I beg of you! gets down on knees Pleeeease, review! Or I shall send Brave Sir Robin after you! breaks off into song

Brave Sir Robin . . .

Oh and before I forget, anybody in there catch the mention to Tom Felton? Heh, brownie points to you if you did!


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